


someone that i used to be or someone that i will be or someone that i am right now

by somnum365



Category: Black Sails
Genre: 19k about naming cats, Anal Sex, Cats, Fluff, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Kittens, Multi, Post-Series, Shaving, allusions to john silver's terrible past but nothing explicit, bi flint, bi silver, cat-typical levels of disgusting behavior, ham-fisted use of animals as metaphors for polyamory, james 'beats a man to death without a second thought' flint is grossed out by cats, some accurate cat behaviors and some inaccurate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:20:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24952948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somnum365/pseuds/somnum365
Summary: Flint breaks them out of the plantation within a month. He and Thomas settle in Salem, Massachusetts, and soon they find their small house filled by four cats, Silver, four kittens, and Madi. Together, they rebuild their lives out of the ruins that they had been left in. The New World is full of possibilities.
Relationships: Captain Flint | James McGraw/John Silver, Captain Flint | James McGraw/Thomas Hamilton, Captain Flint | James McGraw/Thomas Hamilton/John Silver, Madi/John Silver
Comments: 15
Kudos: 97





	someone that i used to be or someone that i will be or someone that i am right now

**Author's Note:**

> Wow! This is the longest thing I've ever written in my life. I would've been done with this months ago if I hadn't given myself so many cats to name. This is post-series, post-Treasure Island.
> 
> There are references to the fact that Silver had a hard life pre-canon, but there are no explicit descriptions of it. He refuses to talk about it here just as he does in canon.
> 
> This is a place of rest. There are struggles that the characters would still be going through in real life that I do not depict here, such as the period-typical homophobia, and I don't think that Madi would (or should) ever forgive Silver in canon. But she does here, because it is something that they would both need in order to heal and rest. It is not realistic.
> 
> Title is from Ghost Quartet.
> 
> Obvious inspiration from the orange verse by vowelinthug, the butterscotch verse by robotboy, and the smallpox verse by vowelinthug, and subliminal inspiration from so many others.

Flint breaks them out of the plantation within a month.

It goes like this: he sleeps for about three days straight, spends another two faking sick to have the most joyous and intense sex of his life with Thomas, and then immediately sets about learning how the plantation works. He comes up with about five potential plans for breaking out, and collaborates with Thomas to figure out the one most likely to work. A shockingly small amount of violence is necessary. Oglethorpe is terrified of having Flint on his property when the man is in shackles; the sight of Flint with a gun stolen from one of the guards is enough to make Oglethorpe throw his keys at Flint and beg for his life in return. From there, Flint and Thomas simply walk out the front gate. As happy as Flint is to not have to show the violent side of himself to Thomas this early on in their reunion, he still feels a twinge of guilt at the thought that it would have been this easy to get Thomas back all of these years.

They walk to the nearest farm, steal two horses, and ride to Savannah. From Savannah, they get a ship to Boston. Both quickly realize Boston is not a good fit for either of them. Flint is constantly worried about being recognized, and Thomas hasn’t been around this many people in a decade. So the two go north to Salem instead. The docks are still active enough to soothe any anxiety Flint might have about being too far from the sea, but the town is not so populated as to shock Thomas. Perhaps one day they will move back to Boston, but for now Salem is a good fit. 

They talk. At first it’s difficult, organizing the last ten years into words he can speak out loud. Flint starts with the obvious: Miranda. He tells Thomas about how Miranda teased the locals, especially the pastor, and how everyone thought she was a witch. He tells Thomas about Miranda’s garden, and Thomas laughs warmly at the thought of Miranda covered in dirt. Through his tears he manages to tell Thomas about Peter Ashe’s betrayal (Thomas knew), Miranda’s skillful uncovering of it (Thomas smiles), and about how Peter’s man shot Miranda through the head in the middle of a sentence for daring to raise her voice at Peter (Thomas weeps). He tells Thomas that he killed Peter and razed Charlestown to the ground like Miranda wanted. Thomas says “Good.”

He tells Thomas about his life as a pirate captain, about how quickly he gained command, how terrible the men were to handle. He tells him about Billy and Dufresne and DeGroot. He trips over every mention of Gates until Thomas finally prompts him to explain why. He tells him about the Urca gold, and Eleanor, and how he was going to fulfill Thomas’ vision for Nassau. He was so close, he tells Thomas, he was so close.

He talks about Silver. Probably more than he should, given the relatively short amount of time they had known each other. He tells him about Silver stealing the schedule and burning it to ensure Flint couldn’t kill him, and about how Silver lost his leg to ensure the crew survived. He tells Thomas about how Silver lied and stole the gold from him and then gave up his claim to it, and he tells him about the creation of Long John Silver. He tells Thomas about telling Silver about Thomas, and how he thought that maybe, possibly… but no, and he tells Thomas about Madi. He tells him about the war and how promising it looked for the future of the New World. He was so close, he tells Thomas, he was so close.

And then he talks about Silver again, and how angry he is with Silver for taking his war away when they were so close. And he talks about how he can’t really be angry with him, because he understands why he did it, because the war would have meant his death and Madi’s death and the deaths of so many more. And he got Thomas instead, who he would have traded any number of righteous wars for, if he knew it was an option.

Thomas tells him about Bedlam. He tells him about the dark, the damp, the horrible voyeurs who would come to laugh at the freaks chained to the walls of the asylum. He tells him that he may not have been mad when he went in, but if he had stayed much longer he would have been driven to it.

He tells him about his move to the colonies, about being woken up in the night and forced onto a ship without a word as to why or where. He tells James about his stop in Carolina, about Peter telling him his father was dead and so he had arranged for Thomas to be hidden away near Savannah, in a more civilized place. (Flint interrupts to confess that he killed Thomas’ father. Thomas looks at him fiercely and says “Good.”) He tells him about asking Peter why he couldn’t stay in Carolina with him, and Peter never giving him a good answer.

He talks about his early days on the plantation. He talks about falling ill almost immediately, nearly dying, but recovering miraculously. He tells him about the other men who were there at that time, and he tells him about a lover he had named George. He tells him about George catching the wrong end of a machete in the head while working the sugar cane. He’s silent for a long moment after that, and Flint just holds him.

After a few minutes, Flint tells him the story of Cregg and the bottle of piss, and Thomas laughs again.

________

The cats begin appearing at the house in Salem about two years after they move in, and they appear almost all at once. At first there’s just one, an orange tomcat who hunts the mice around their woodpile. Flint tries to shoo the cat away before Thomas points out the good service the cat is providing. Flint isn’t convinced, but leaves it alone and pretends not to notice Thomas leaving dishes of water and meat scraps on the porch.

A week later two grey cats appear in their yard as well. One is unremarkable, but the other is clearly blind in one eye and walks with a limp. This cat is horribly friendly, rubbing up against Flint’s legs when he makes the mistake of leaving the house to go to work. He looks up at Flint with piercing blue eyes, meowing softly. Flint swears and reaches into his bag, regretting it even as he does it, and feeds the cat some of the meat he was bringing for lunch. The cat grabs the meat from his hand and rushes off to eat it privately. There is something unshakably familiar about this cat.

Finally, not two days later, a black cat gets herself stuck in the highest branches of the tree in their front yard. Flint would be more than happy to leave the cat there, as he figures cats are creatures known for their ability to fend for themselves, but Thomas fixes him with a look that says he is so dramatically saddened by the prospect that Flint sighs and gets the ladder. It doesn’t reach nearly high enough, and when Flint finally gets to the cat she scratches his arms up in her attempt to get out of both the tree and his grasp. But she comes around the house often after that.

As the temperature drops and the snow levels rise, the cats begin moving from their yard to their porch. Thomas finally takes mercy on them and lets them into the house, much to Flint’s frustration. The house is barely big enough for two grown men, nevermind four cats.

“We’ve got to do something about all these cats,” Flint says when he trips over the orange one on his way from the kitchen to where Thomas is reclining in the living room, nearly spilling the two glasses of whiskey he had just poured.

Thomas barely looks up from where he had been teasing the previously unremarkable—now known to be particularly playful—grey cat with a feather he’d attached to a string. “I couldn’t agree more, my love. They need names if they’re to be living with us like this.”

Flint frowns. “Now you know that’s not what I meant.” He hands Thomas his glass and lifts Thomas’ legs off of the sofa so that he could sit where they were, lowering his legs back down so that they rest in Flint’s lap.

“It’s cold outside, James. The snow is six feet deep and they just want a warm place to sleep until spring. Who are we to deny them this basic comfort?” Thomas trails the feather across the floor, watching the grey cat track its movement and pounce suddenly.

Flint rolls his eyes at Thomas’ exaggeration but can’t stop the fond smile from curling his lips. “Fine. What do you want to name our little freeloaders, then?”

“They’re hardly freeloaders. Have you seen a single mouse this winter?”

Flint cringes. “Not alive, no.” He had, in fact, seen dozens of dead mice, in part or in whole. He’d seen them in front of the door, he’d seen them in the middle of the living room, and he’d seen them halfway inside of a cat’s mouth and heard the sickening snap of their tiny bones being crushed by sharp teeth. Flint had beaten men to death with his bare hands and felt less nausea than he had the first time he heard a cat eat a mouse in an otherwise silent house. The worst mice were the ones he didn’t see until after he had already stepped on them with his bare feet while sleepily getting out of bed, especially if said mouse could more accurately be described as a pile of mouse guts with a tail. Honestly, Flint had thought he had left behind the part of his life when he was routinely exposed to viscera.

Thomas smirks at the disgust in Flint’s voice. “Exactly. They serve a purpose. Now, I think we should name them according to their personalities. How about Odysseus for this one?” Thomas pulls the feather high, making the cat jump in order to catch it.

Flint has to admit the name was fitting. The other three cats were around most of the time, but this one would leave for days on end. Flint liked the idea of a cat defeating cyclopes and sea monsters. Hell, they did live in Salem, it wasn’t unthinkable for there to be a possessive witch or two nearby.

He runs his hand along Thomas’ calves in his lap. “I like Odysseus.”

Thomas smiles at him. “Then it’s settled. Odysseus it is.”

________

Thomas moans as Flint fucks into him. The two are fully wrapped around each other as they usually are during sex, Thomas’ arms and legs holding Flint’s body as close to his own as he can, Flint’s arms cradling Thomas’ torso like he might disappear into the bed beneath him if Flint loosens his hold. Thomas is _alive, alive, blessedly alive_ , and so is James, but neither of them can truly believe it until they are enveloped and enveloping. Flint rolls his hips, driving his cock into Thomas at just the right angle to draw high-pitched whines from the back of Thomas’ throat.

Perhaps it’s because Flint’s flat back doesn’t move much in this position, or perhaps Thomas’ noises sound like an invitation, but suddenly Flint feels a weight on his back and cold paws pressing themselves into his skin. Flint groans, not out of pleasure but frustration. He hates fucking with the cats in the room, nevermind with a cat on top of him. He stops moving and presses his face into Thomas’ neck.

“Which one is it?” Flint asks, like it would make a difference.

Thomas lifts his head, pushing Flint’s now-long hair out of his face. Flint can hear the smile on his face when he says “Why, it’s our unnamed half-blind beauty. Hello, my darling, are you feeling neglected?” He lifts one arm from around Flint’s back to pet the cat. “We’ll be with you momentarily, I promise, but I’m afraid we do have to finish here first.” Thomas does this often, talks to the cats like they’re humans with a capacity for reason and an understanding of English. Flint finds it endearing most of the time, knowing that Thomas is still trying to polish his rusty manners with creatures that won’t mind if he missteps. But other times—times like these—he finds it irritating.

“Thomas-”

“Yes, yes, I know. Down you go, dear.” Thomas lifts the cat off of Flint’s back (though not before the cat digs his claws into Flint’s skin, clearly wanting to stay where he is) and drops him softly onto the floor. “There. Now, where were we?” Thomas asks as he grabs hold of Flint’s arse with both hands and urges him forward.

They make it another thirty seconds or so before Flint feels the cat jump back onto him.

“Christ, really?” The cat has fully settled this time, purring and licking at the sweat on Flint’s back.

Thomas tuts as he puts the cat on the floor again. “Persistent one, aren’t you? Must you insinuate yourself into this situation you have no business being involved in?”

The cat meows, and Flint turns to look at it. Two blue eyes stare back at him; one covered in a milky film, the other a hauntingly familiar color. Suddenly he remembers where he knows it from.

“We’re calling this one Long,” Flint says. He untangles himself from Thomas’ body, picks the cat up and puts him in the hallway, making sure their bedroom door is now firmly shut.

Thomas frowns at him. “The cat isn’t particularly long, I’d say he’s about normal leng— oh.” James looks down at the floor. “Oh, yes, of course. If that’s what you want.”

“It is.” James hasn’t looked up, can’t look at Thomas yet. He’d told Thomas most of what happened to him in the last ten years, leaving little out. He’d told him about Silver, about their indefinable relationship and how James wasn’t really sure how he felt about him at the end. He was sure now. He misses Silver.

“Well good, that’s two named. Halfway there.” Thomas sits up and reaches for James, a soft smile on his face. James returns it and allows himself to be pulled back onto the bed. “Now that you’ve taken precautions against us being interrupted again, why don’t you come down here and finish what you’ve started.”

Flint gladly obliges.

_________

Both Thomas and Flint had found jobs almost as soon as they got to Salem. Thomas works in the newspaper printing shop in town, setting type and printing pages. He enjoys reading the newspapers before anyone else in town, often rushing home after work to share the latest print-worthy gossip with James. Thomas may not be writing for the newspaper, and they may be laying low so as not to be mentioned in it, but Thomas enjoys being able to say that he is still making the news all these years later.

Flint found it harder to find the right job. He tried carpentry for a while, but quickly learned that he disliked the monotony of making the same chair over and over again as well as being told what to do. So he decided that perhaps something more solitary would be a better fit. He tried his hand at fishing, but found that he had lost the patience required for it, if he had ever had it to begin with. In an act of desperation, he found work at an inn. He works as a cook some days and a bartender some nights. He was surprised by how much he enjoyed it. He had thought that he would feel similarly about it as he did carpentry, but Salem being a port city broke up the monotony. He served different people from different parts of the world every night.

So, really, Flint can be forgiven for not noticing him right away.

Flint is pouring ale for a particularly rowdy crowd of sailors one night, focusing his attention on assessing whether or not they were going to become a problem, when he hears a distinctive step-thump approaching the bar. He drops the metal cup he had been filling and looks up.

There, standing at the bar like he’s any other sailor, is John Silver. His hair is as long as the last time Flint had seen him, but his beard is shorter and better groomed, thank God.

He looks good.

They just stare at each other for a moment, Flint in shock and Silver in smiling appraisal. Then Silver quirks his head and says, “Captain.”

Flint is frozen for conflicting wants of movement. He wants to bring Silver into a hearty and desperate embrace, holding him close to his body to make sure he’s actually there. He wants to reach his hands across the bar and strangle Silver for having the nerve to show up at his place of employment two years after selling him into bondage. He wants to cry and weep and scream his thanks for being reunited with Thomas.

He ends up slapping him across the face.

It happens before he can stop it, and it isn’t what he would have chosen. Flint thinks he meant to put his hand on Silver’s shoulder, but his fighting instinct had come back in full force as soon as he’d laid eyes on Silver again.

Flint, wide-eyed and still silent, looks at Silver for his reaction. Silver just laughs.

“Not what I expected, but probably less than I deserve. Is there somewhere more private we can talk?”

For the first time since he noticed Silver, Flint becomes aware that they are not alone. He looks around. Some of the regular patrons are looking their way, but thankfully not many. The rowdy sailors only notice their lack of drink. One yells at Flint to bring them more ale, like he was supposed to be doing before this ghost walked out of his past and into his inn. Flint shakes himself off and begins pouring again.

“I’ll be done here in about an hour. Can you wait that long?” Flint hopes the desperation doesn’t show in his eyes, but he knows it does.

The look Silver gives him is almost predatory. A warning? But his eyes are playful. Flint would think he was flirting if he didn’t know better. Silver asks, “Are you going to hit me again?”

Flint answers honestly. “I don’t know.”

Silver gives him a half-smile. “Well I guess I’ll just have to take my chances.” He picks up a mug of ale that Flint had intended to take to the group of sailors and moves to a table in the back.

The hour passes slowly. Flint tries to stay focused on his work, but he can feel Silver’s eyes on him the whole time. Flint can’t tell what he wants. If he was angry that Flint and Thomas had escaped the plantation, he would have had them abducted under cover of night and taken back by force. Flint supposes this could still be the plan, but doubts he would have been allowed to finish his shift if it was. It doesn’t seem like a friendly visit either. Silver’s eyes follow him too closely, too tightly for that.

If Silver is here to try to bring Flint back into the life, he’ll do more than slap him.

Finally, the hour is up. The other bartender comes in to relieve him. Flint grabs his coat and makes his way over to Silver. Flint inclines his head towards the door. “Ready?”

Silver looks at him without a word, getting up without ever taking his eyes off of Flint. It’s a bit unnerving.

The two leave the inn and walk side by side. After about five minutes, Flint breaks the silence. “Why are you here?”

Silver shoots Flint a look that he thinks is supposed to be offended, but there is too much wariness for it to be genuine. “Can’t I simply visit an old friend?”

Flint doesn’t know why he expected a straight answer. “You could,” Flint assures him. “But that’s not what you’re doing.”

Silver huffs, but otherwise gives no response.

They walk the rest of the way in silence. When they reach the house, Flint sees that Thomas is home and has lit the lantern on the fencepost like he does whenever Flint works nights. Seeing it makes Flint’s heart glow warm every time. This time, though, it also makes him wish that Thomas was somewhere else tonight. Flint would prefer he wasn’t here for this, whatever this was going to be.

He leads Silver through the front door regardless. Flint and Silver take off their coats and Flint hangs them on the coat rack he made at the carpentry workshop before he left. Thomas looks up from the book he was reading in his chair by the fire, first with soft eyes and then with confusion as he notices Silver behind Flint. Thomas’ gaze goes to Silver’s leg before Flint can say anything, and a dawning understanding crosses his features.

Thomas begins, “Is this-”

Flint interrupts, “Yes, it is. He showed up at the inn and won’t say a word as to why.”

Silver rolls his eyes. “I _told_ you, I’m simply paying a visit-” but he falls down before he can finish repeating his lie. Silver may be as nimble on his crutch as he was on two legs, but he did not account for a small army of cats congregating at his foot.

Silver, flat on his back, looks up at Flint in horror as four cats begin sniffing him curiously. Before Silver can stop him, Long climbs onto Silver’s stomach and begins kneading. Flint can’t help but laugh.

“ _Why_ do you have so many cats?” Silver asks, trying unsuccessfully to move Long.

Flint inclines his head towards Thomas, who by now has crossed the room to get a better look at the man who all the other members of the household have acquainted themselves with.

Thomas says, “We don’t have them so much as they live here, currently, due to the weather being so dreadful out there. Though truthfully, I doubt they’ll leave in the spring. Especially Long, there. He’s just so friendly.”

If Silver was shocked before, Flint doesn’t know what to call the expression that moves over his face at the mention of the cat’s name.

Flint grabs Long and moves him off of Silver, unhooking the claws that sink into Silver’s shirt as the cat is pulled away. He then offers his hand to Silver to help him up, which Silver surprisingly takes. The whole time Silver’s eyes are fixed curiously on Flint.

Once Silver is standing, Thomas clears his throat and offers his hand to shake. Silver takes it, and Thomas covers Silver’s hand with his other. “Thomas Hamilton, though you know that already. I go by Thomas Barlow here, though I suspect you know that too. Thank you for bringing my husband back to me.”

Flint’s cheeks go pink, as they always do when Thomas uses that term. Silver blinks, clearly not expecting such a warm welcome from this man. He nods briskly, as if he cannot bring himself to accept gratitude for that action. _Interesting_ , Flint thinks.

Thomas finally lets go of Silver’s hand. He turns to Flint. “Well, while I’d love to stay and get to know Mr. Silver here, I think that I’ll have plenty of opportunities in the coming days. For tonight, it’s best if I turn in early. Come to bed when you’re done with whatever needs doing.” Thomas brings his hand up to Flint’s warm cheek and kisses him soundly. The kiss is a reassurance and a confidence booster, but it is also possessive. _You’re mine_ , the kiss says, _even if you are his too_. Thomas turns back to wink at Silver before leaving the room.

Silver looks dazed when Flint turns back to him. Silver huffs out a breath and says, “He is not what I was expecting at all. When you said he was a lord, I imaged he would be a lot more… delicate.”

Flint snorts in amusement. “You must not know me very well if you thought I would fall for someone delicate.”

Silver raises his eyebrows to concede. Then he smiles sadly, lowering his eyes.

Flint feels the smile leave his lips. He takes a step forward. “Why are you here, John?”

The use of his first name catches Silver’s attention and he looks up at Flint. “I don’t know,” he says in a small voice.

“Is Madi…”

“Madi is fine. More than fine, really. She’s helping to start slave revolts in Jamaica. Last I heard, anyway.” He drops Flint’s gaze again. “She doesn’t write to me much.”

Flint had told Silver it would be so, but in this moment he doesn’t feel good about being right. He takes another step towards Silver, succeeding in resting a hand on his shoulder this time. Silver takes this as an invitation to throw himself into Flint’s arms, head buried in his chest. Flint is surprised, but cannot deny the glow in his heart from the feeling of Silver pressed against him. He wraps his arms around Silver to bring him even closer. Silver sobs, soaking through Flint’s shirt, and Flint holds him through it.

After a while, Silver’s sobs taper off and he lifts his face to Flint’s. “She thought I killed you. She never believed me when I told her what I really did. It’s a fantastical story, to be fair, but it was still the truth. She thought I could… You, of all people, she thought I could…” Silver’s wet eyes stare imploringly into Flint’s, desperately searching for a sign that Flint does not think him capable too.

Flint brings a hand up from Silver’s back to cradle the side of his head, thumb stroking the hair at his temple. “Shh, I know, I know.” He presses a gentle kiss to Silver’s forehead, lingers, and can’t stop himself from pressing another, and another, until he finds himself kissing Silver’s temple and down to his wet, salty cheeks. Silver tastes like the ocean and Flint can feel himself going mad as he drinks it in. Silver’s hands have tightened in Flint’s shirt and he lets out a soft whimper before he presses his lips to Flint’s.

Flint had, on many occasions, wondered what it would be like to kiss Silver. Early on in their relationship, it would have been rough. Flint would have taken Silver by the neck and growled angry, passionate things into the hinge of his jaw until they both got too frustrated and gave in to their bodies’ draw to each other. Neither had liked or trusted the other, and they would have made that clear with their lips. They would have bitten at each other and tried to gain the upper hand, as if that was something that mattered in an activity like this.

Then Silver lost his leg, and Flint lost Miranda, and they both lost the drive for the gold that made them so angry with each other. When they became friends on the Maroon island, Flint thought their kisses would have been exploratory, figuring out how to make their lips and bodies work together to bring about the best result. There would have been less biting and more tongue, groans pushed into each other’s mouths to quiet them because it would have been bad, politically, for them to be seen to be this close. It was one thing to speak in the same voice as your captain, but for Silver to be seen with Flint’s tongue literally shoved into his mouth might have been a step too far for the crew, Flint thought.

After they became close friends, when Flint was closer to Silver than anyone else in the world, he thought their kisses would be sweet and gentle. He imagined himself winning a sword fighting match against Silver, and instead of backing away to start the next bout he would move closer. And he would drop his sword but not his eyes as he moved even closer. And Silver would be confused for a moment but then he would get it, and he would drop his sword but not his eyes too, and they would finally stand face-to-face on the sunlit cliffs and just breathe each other in. And it would be that simple, to just lean in and press his lips against Silver’s and have Silver’s press back, because Silver knew him better than anyone and had become such a part of him that it would just _work_. They could be soft with each other in the middle of a hard war, Flint thought.

In all his imaginings, Flint never thought kissing Silver would feel like a catharsis. He feels any remaining tension he held about Silver’s presence pushed out of his body in a wonderful burst. Flint brings his other hand up to cradle the other side of Silver’s head, sliding his thumb along Silver’s jaw as their lips move together. Fresh tears stream down both of their faces but they can’t tear themselves away just yet. Years of tension and maybes and almosts followed by two years of complete absence have led to this moment, and they are not ready for it to end when it has only just begun.

After minutes, hours, days, Flint feels how much Silver is shaking with the effort of standing upright, exhausted after a long journey and an emotional night. He draws back, watching Silver chase his lips. When Silver opens his eyes he looks vulnerable, far more than Flint has ever seen. He is expecting a rejection, Flint thinks. With one thumb, Flint strokes the soft place beneath Silver’s eye. Flint hopes he smiles at Silver with as much love as he feels, but if it is even a fraction he thinks Silver will be reassured. Silver smiles back.

Flint leads Silver over to the sofa. Flint lays down first, opening his arms for Silver to rest against his body. Silver tucks himself between Flint and the back of the couch and pillows his head on Flint’s chest. Flint holds Silver to him tight, idly stroking his hands through Silver’s hair.

“So…” Silver says softly, toying with a loose string on Flint’s shirt.

“Yes?”

“You named your cat Long?”

_______

Thomas finds them asleep on the couch the next morning, covered in cats.

He spends the time he should be using to make them all breakfast sketching the scene before him. It comes out well, he thinks, later teasing James that if he had followed Thomas’ instructions and come to bed Thomas would not have been able to create such a masterpiece.

“I wonder if I can still paint after all these years…” Thomas says, a faraway look in his eyes.

Now that they are back in civilization, Thomas tries to revert himself back to who he was in London (though, a toned-down version in public). But Thomas is not still who he was in London, the years and the trauma keeping these two selves irreconcilable. It’s a defense mechanism, Flint knows. If Thomas can prove that he hasn’t changed then he can prove that he was not broken by his years of imprisonment. He can prove that who he was wasn’t wrong. He tries, and sometimes he almost succeeds, but then little moments like this happen, and Flint watches Thomas mourn for the loss of the life he once led and the person he once was.

And so Flint reaches a hand across the table to rest on Thomas’, squeezes, and says, “I’ll buy some brushes.”

_________

It’s not that Silver and Thomas dislike each other. Far from it, really; they had bonded instantly while trading stories about Captain Flint and Lieutenant McGraw, respectively. So it isn’t dislike, exactly, between them. More of a mutual uneasiness. Both are too skilled at reading people for the other to be truly comfortable around them. This skill combined with their background knowledge of the other from James’ stories mean that they know too much about each other for people who have only just met. Silver knows that Thomas used to be a lord, and Thomas knows that Silver used to be a king, and neither respect the other for their former title.

It doesn’t help that Silver bonds with the cats so easily.

Long, like his namesake, ingratiates himself to everyone. Thomas is not bothered by this bond, and would in fact have been surprised if the cat that James named after Silver did not get along with the man himself. Odysseus is playful enough, and the orange one that Thomas had dubbed Pyrrhus (which he pronounces like Purr-us, making James roll his eyes every time) was sweet enough, that their warming up to Silver was natural.

The black cat, though.

It had taken Flint rescuing her from a tree and Thomas feeding her for weeks to get her to trust them. All Silver had to do was crouch down and rub the calluses on his fingers together in an imitation of a purr to get her to understand that he was not a threat. She came right up to him and began nuzzling his hand, asking for scratches behind her ears for relief from her ear mites.

Thomas had stared, bewildered, while James wore a proud, fond expression. Silver had looked up at them and winked, ever the charmer. Thomas threw his hands up and walked away, muttering something about art supplies and blue-eyed witches.

______

The house had two bedrooms, technically. Before Silver, they had only ever used one. They used the other for things like laundry and letter writing. Though Flint is confident that eventually they will only need one bedroom again—as well as a bigger bed—they were not quite there yet.

For now, they had set up the second mattress in the second bedroom, and Flint went back and forth between the two rooms. One night with Thomas, one night with Silver, two nights with Thomas, two nights with Silver…

Honestly, Flint had never had this much sex in his life.

On his nights with Thomas, the sex is slow and intimate. There had been a time for frantic, passionate sex—two times, actually—but by now they have mellowed. Their couplings are more about closeness now, about being present with each other and their bodies. To hold each other as they once thought they never would again. There is nothing new, but that is not to say that it’s boring. The saccharine familiarity, the feeling of being so completely _understood_ that exists when someone knows exactly where and how to touch you to bring you the most pleasure is a gift that Flint holds onto with both hands and savors every moment of. Flint comes softly, deeply, and with emotions that he understands the shape of.

Silver, on the other hand…

Silver is still new. Every touch still feels electric after holding back for so long. They’re still learning how to touch each other, but they’re learning quickly. Already Flint knows that Silver’s neck is especially sensitive; that he will gasp every time Flint sucks a nipple into his mouth and swirls his tongue around it; that he will sink his hands into the meat of Flint’s thighs any time he gets the chance; that, not unrelated to the last point, Silver’s favorite position is Flint riding him hard and fast. Silver is not quiet, and Flint wonders if it’s intentional or if this is always how he is. He thinks it’s a little of both. He doesn’t think about it while they’re fucking, too enraptured by the still-new sounds of Silver’s moans and groans and guttural grunts—depending on the position—to care much for anything else. In bed, Silver calls him Captain. In response, Flint calls him a little shit. They have a lot of time to work through before they can be James and John, in the present.

_______

Silver’s ability to command the cats is uncanny. Flint would say he’s never seen anything like it, but he’s seen Silver worm his way into the minds of an entire crew. He’s long since stopped being surprised by Silver’s ability to manipulate the world to his liking.

Once, in a horrible repeat of an earlier incident with Thomas, James had found himself balls-deep in Silver with a cat suddenly on his back. Silver looked at the cat and made a hissing sound like water being sprayed forcefully out of a small hole, and the cat (James never learned which one) jumped off of James and scampered out of the room.

James just looked down at Silver in awe. Silver shrugged his shoulders and lifted his hips to urge James to keep moving.

James happily complied.

The cat did not return.

(The next day, James tries to use that noise to make Long stop begging for scraps at the table. The cat blinks, almost offended, but is otherwise unmoved. He meows again, insistently. James scowls and looks up to find Thomas staring at him with concern and distaste at the noise his husband has just made at their cat for what seems to him like no apparent reason.

Silver barely contains his laughter. He makes an abbreviated, yet somehow clearer, version of the noise, and Long flinches and runs into another room. Flint is utterly disheartened. Now Silver does laugh, turning to Thomas. “If you’ve ever wondered what the two of us running a ship was like, it was like that.”)

_______

One Saturday, during that time of year that can’t properly be called either winter or spring, it finally happens.

Thomas and Silver are arguing about something in the kitchen—potatoes, maybe, James honestly doesn’t know. He’s paying attention, sure, but he isn’t listening. He’s watching. The two argue with their mouths and their faces, but their bodies are turned into each other as if drawn together by magnets. James has been watching the tension between them turn from suspicious to competitive to sexual, and he sees now that it’s about to boil over.

_Finally_ , James thinks.

He gets up from the table abruptly. They both turn to look at him, and whatever they see on his face makes their arguments die on their lips.

Slowly, James reaches down and takes his shirt off. Thomas and Silver look at each other, as if to see if this action is meant only for the other, and, finding it is meant for both of them, turn back to James.

James reaches for the buttons on his trousers, popping them one by one. He lets the trousers and smallclothes fall to the ground and he steps out of them, uncovering his half-hard cock in the dying afternoon light of their kitchen.

Twin expressions of lust grace the faces of the two men James loves most in the world. He inclines his head towards his and Thomas’ bedroom, and says, “Come.” James turns and walks off towards the bedroom without waiting for a response, knowing for the first time that both will follow him there without hesitation.

He is rewarded by the sounds of three feet and a crutch scurrying after him.

They spend the afternoon (and the evening, and would have spent the night had Silver not gotten hungry) exploring this new dynamic. At first, Silver and Thomas are both focused on James. And he allows it, because he’s certainly not going to object to the amount of love and pleasure he’s receiving, but it feels like they are two points separately projecting out of himself rather than the other two sides of a triangle, like it had with Miranda.

So when they begin round two, he makes sure Thomas and Silver taste each other more than they taste him. He directs Silver to suck Thomas, and tells him how Thomas likes it. He shows Thomas how to make Silver squirm just by pulling his hair and kissing his neck right. Soon, he stops needing to direct them at all, the two putting their mouths on each other in whatever way they can think of in the moment. Silver doesn’t ask about the long scars on Thomas’ back, but kisses them as he makes his way down Thomas’ spine to his hole, eating him out like he’s been starving for days. Thomas knows without needing to be told that he has to be careful with Silver’s left knee if he’s going to fuck him on all fours.

James watches and feels a rush of love squeeze his heart at the sight of them finally, _finally_ enjoying each other. Round three finds him sandwiched between them, fucking Silver on his back to take the pressure off Silver’s knee while Thomas fills him from behind. The three finally feel like one; a sweaty, tired, cum-covered one, but one nonetheless. Silver calls out “Captain!” as he comes onto his chest, causing Thomas to spend deep within James. James files this away as _interesting_ right before the vice-like grip of Silver’s arse finishes him off too.

The three collapse onto the bed panting, side pressed to side pressed to side. James reaches out with both hands and grasps one hand from each of the men on either side of him, bringing their hands to lay on his heaving chest right over his heart.

He turns to Silver. “Will you stay in here now?”

Silver hears the double meaning, must do, because his smile is too deep to be the response to a simple room moving question. “Yes, I think I will. It’s quite comfortable.”

_______

“How long has she been pregnant?” Silver asks one evening in the spring.

Thomas and James both look up from their books at the black cat lounging with Silver on the floor. Silver is laying on his side next to her, gently pressing his hands into her stomach with a frown of concentration. Silver is the only one she would let do this, Flint is sure. She’s ornery and reclusive on the best of days, but with Silver she brightens right up.

“How do you know she’s pregnant?” Flint asks. The cat looks the same to him, she has no protruding stomach to speak of.

Silver gives him a look that tells him that the origin of this particular skillset lies too far back in Silver’s past for him to verbalize it, but trust him, he knows.

Flint tries a different approach. “Well, since the snow melted they’ve all been spending more time outside. We wouldn’t know, wouldn’t hear them. Could be weeks, I suppose.”

Silver hums in response, as if that was his suspicion too. _Who are you? Where are you from?_ Flint doesn’t ask.

“Who do you think the father is?” Thomas asks.

Silver sighs. “Well, it could be any of them, or it could be none of them, some random street cat we haven’t met.” At Thomas’ look of displeasure, Silver adds, “Or it could be all of them. Any combination. A litter of kittens can have more than one father.”

Thomas lights up at this. “I bet my Pyrrhus is one of the fathers.” (James rolls his eyes.) “He and this little lady have been inseparable of late.” It’s true. Pyrrhus is sitting in Thomas’ lap as he speaks, half-lidded eyes peering down at the black cat. “I saw him bring in a mouse for her to eat the other day, like a true gentleman.”

Silver stops feeling the cat’s belly and sits up, leaning against James’ legs. “She’ll need a name now that she’s to be a mother.”

James puts his book down in favor of running his hands through Silver’s hair. “How about Israel? She’s standoffish to people, apart from you.”

Silver shudders at the idea. “No. Absolutely not. She’s not dumb enough to get so drunk she gets killed by a twelve-year-old boy.”

Hmm. Now that’s a story that Silver hasn’t told Flint yet. He seems to realize this and tenses up. Flint keeps running his hands through Silver’s hair to let him know it’s okay, he knows Silver will tell it when he’s ready.

Silver sighs, looking at the cat. “No, she reminds me of you, actually. How you were when we first met.”

Flint chuckles. “I didn’t warm up to you nearly that quickly.”

“No, but I haven’t tried to steal five million pieces of eight from this cat.”

Flint hums. “Fair point.”

Silver looks up at him mischievously. “We could call her Captain.”

Simultaneously, Flint and Thomas both answer “No!”

Silver pouts and leans into Flint a little harder, looking back at the cat. He is silent for a long moment, and then, “You know, when we were becalmed, I saw the merit in the stories people told about you. The ones where you were a sea god, or the son of a sea god.” Thomas sits up, intrigued. “I asked Billy who was more powerful, the one who conjured the storm or the one who convinced us to fight it. In that moment I truly believed it was you. Now, granted, I was starving to death and had been refusing my water rations, but the impression stuck with me far longer than it should have. We could do something with that. Poseidon or Neptune, maybe.”

Thomas leans forward, his eyes glowing with the sudden force of his conviction. All of the classics training he received growing up had prepared him for this moment. “But this cat is female. Why not combine your two ideas? A reclusive sea goddess. How about Calypso? Her name is derived from the Greek word meaning to conceal or hide, and in many stories she’s a sea nymph.”

Flint crinkles his nose. He knows the Odyssey and doesn’t appreciate the comparison. “We have a cat named Odysseus, too. Doesn’t that clash with your theory that Pyrrhus is the father of her children?” (He pronounces the name of Achilles’ son correctly, thank you, without making explicit and unnecessary reference to the fact that in this moment the name refers to a cat.)

Thomas has evidently thought of that already. “You heard John. He said a litter can have multiple fathers. Who’s to say they won’t both produce children by Calypso?”

James and Thomas go back and forth a few times about the mythological potential for this to happen, given the Greek stories as they know them.

When they finally run out of points to make, Silver, who has been quiet throughout the whole conversation, says, “I think Calypso is a good name.”

So they name the cat Calypso.

________

Silver sends letters to Madi. Well, he sends them to a tailor shop in Nassau where one of Madi’s spies is employed, and hopes that they are passed on to her from there. Hopes, not knows, because he has never actually received a letter back. But he has also never received a letter telling him to stop, so.

He writes about everything. He writes about Flint, and how _alive_ he is, and about Thomas and how different he is from what Silver thought he would be like. He writes about how he has found love with them, both of them, but that he still misses Madi so much he can’t breathe sometimes.

He writes about his new job. Flint had gotten him work at the inn, for now, teasing him that he could put his cooking skills to good use again, so long as no one wanted a roast pig. He writes about how the owner of the inn looked him over skeptically (“Are you sure he’s up to it?”) and how Flint had assured the man that if he wasn’t, he could fire them both. He writes about how warm and loved it made him feel that even after everything Flint was still willing to risk this much for him.

_______

James can’t stop watching Silver and Thomas kiss. It helps that they do it a lot; a quick peck here, a gentle tease there. Other times they find it hard to stop once they begin, and it only escalates from there.

He watches as Silver’s mustache (neat, well groomed, but still long) caresses the space between Thomas’ nose and lips. They’re laying down on the bed, facing each other on their sides, but it’s only a matter of time before one of them flips the other onto his back to aid in friction. Already the kiss is heating up, and from where James sits on one side of the bed it looks like they’re trying to swallow each other. Silver has a hand on Thomas’ jaw, feeling it work as Thomas kisses him. Thomas has a hand on Silver’s arse, not trying to pull him closer yet, just appreciating the feeling of it under his hand.

James could watch this for hours. Has, actually, on several occasions. Things have improved between Silver and Thomas since they started fucking, but they’re still two of the most stubborn men James has ever known. Sometimes they do this, just kiss and pet and tease, trying to get the other worked up enough to admit his desperation and progress the encounter. Usually James will intercede if it goes on for too long. Usually.

Sometimes he just likes to watch as Thomas slips a hand under Silver’s shirt and begins tracing his muscles with a feather-light touch. He likes to watch Silver’s muscles twitch under the attention and he likes to listen to the beautiful moans it draws from Silver. He likes to watch Silver bite Thomas’ lip and suck on his tongue in retaliation. He likes to listen to Thomas growl—something he never does with just James—and watch him work his other hand into Silver’s hair and _pull_.

Tonight, James intercedes.

He runs his fingers along the skin above the top of Silver’s trousers and feels him shudder. James reaches under Thomas’ hand to work Silver’s trousers off, rubbing against both Silver and Thomas’ erections as he does. Both moan under his touch.

James gets Silver’s shirt off too, then rolls him onto his back. He climbs on top of Silver and replaces Thomas’ lips with his own. He kisses Silver passionately before doing the same to Thomas. James pulls his lips away to whisper into Thomas’ ear, “Take your clothes off.” Thomas rushes to comply, and James turns back to Silver. He works his lips and tongue along Silver’s neck just as James knows he likes it. Silver writhes under him, pushing up James’ shirt to grasp James’ skin.

Thomas soon starts working on removing James’ clothes too. As soon as all three are naked, Thomas pushes James off of Silver and lays on top of Silver himself. He grinds his hips down into Silver’s and both men moan at the feeling of their cocks coming together. Silver has his head thrown back in pleasure while Thomas nibbles and licks his way down Silver’s neck and across his collarbone.

James just watches them. In moments like this, he almost forgets about his own pleasure, too wrapped up in seeing the two men he loves most love each other. Sex has never been about the physical pleasure for James, not in the same way it is for most men. It’s always been more about the intimacy, the giving and receiving of attention. A way of saying ‘I want you, all of you, as close to me as I can get. I care about you enough to be vulnerable and to appreciate your being vulnerable in return.’

That doesn’t mean that his dick doesn’t throb when Thomas moans as James brushes a finger against Thomas’ hole. That his heart doesn’t start beating faster when he catches the wicked look in Silver’s eye as he realizes that James is helping him take Thomas apart.

James slicks up his fingers with oil from a jar on their bedside table and increases his efforts. Thomas pushes back against James’ fingers and forward into the crease where Silver’s leg meets his hips. He has given up teasing Silver for the moment, simply moaning and whining into his neck. Silver’s hands trail down Thomas’ back and meet James’ at his arse. Silver slips a finger in beside James’ two and Thomas really starts making noise. It’s the fact that both have their fingers in him, that they’re coming together to stretch him, more than it is the number of fingers.

But it helps that Silver has thick fingers.

Thomas lifts his head and orders “Out, out. I’m ready. I want to appreciate every inch Long John Silver has to offer.”

Any other time, Silver would scowl and James would roll his eyes. But not here, not now. Now they both rush to get their fingers out of Thomas so that he can ride Silver.

If it’s still a power struggle, James has no idea who’s winning. They’re both desperate for each other and unashamed in showing it.

Silver grasps at Thomas’ hips as Thomas positions himself over Silver’s cock and sinks down slowly, slowly, going about halfway down before pulling back up torturously. He repeats this several times with a breathless smirk on his face, teasing, before Silver says “For fuck’s sake, Thomas,” and pulls him down by the hips. All three moan when Thomas is fully seated.

Finally, Thomas begins riding him in earnest. It’s clear that neither are going to last long like this, Thomas’ movements erratic already and Silver’s hands bite tightly into his hips as he tries to regulate the pace. James is mesmerized as Thomas leans down to press a dirty kiss between Silver’s lips, his tongue caressing Silver’s in a way that James knows to be wildly erotic.

James reaches between them to jerk Thomas’ cock. Thomas keens high in the back of his throat as James strokes him once, twice, three times before Thomas spills into James’ hand and onto Silver’s chest. Silver follows him with a grunt and a sigh of relief, holding Thomas’ hips flush against his own as he empties himself deep inside of Thomas.

Once they have regulated their breathing, they both turn to James. With a wordless coordination, Thomas moves aside and Silver shimmies down the bed and takes James into his mouth. No pretense, no teasing, just swallows him down in one go. James moans and tangles his hand in Silver’s hair as Silver’s tongue drags wetly across his shaft with every motion. Thomas kisses James with as much tongue and rubs James’ nipples.

The onslaught of sensation combined with the show he just witnessed means he’s coming in Silver’s mouth before he can do more than tug roughly on his hair in warning. Silver sucks him through it and licks him clean while Thomas swallows his moans.

Thomas collapses against James’ chest and moves over a bit to make room for Silver. Silver settles on the other side and leans his head on the other side of James’ chest. James can feel them looking at each other across his body and breathing in each other’s air. He wraps an arm around each of them and promptly falls asleep.

_______

As the spring heats up, Calypso’s stomach grows. James isn’t surprised to see that Silver was right, but the prospect of kittens is still a strange one to him.

“Won’t be long now,” Silver says one night in early April. He’s laying across the couch with his head in Thomas’ lap while Calypso lays on her back on Silver’s stomach. The poor cat is so weighed down that Silver had needed to pick her up to get her onto the couch. He’s feeling her stomach again.

“How many can we expect?” James asks.

Silver hums. “There’s at least three, maybe four. That’s about average.”

God, four more animals in the house. James has grown fond of each of the cats to varying degrees, but to double the number of loud creatures underfoot seems an insanity.

“We’re going to be fathers,” Thomas says, looking down at Silver excitedly. Silver grins back at him. Thomas reaches out to stroke Calypso, who bites him lightly once but allows it.

“More like grandfathers,” James corrects.

“Why, James, do you see these cats as our children?” Thomas asks, his eyes sparkling with mirth.

James scowls back. “Godfathers, then. Friends of the parents.”

Silver and Thomas exchange a look, the one they always do when James is being too stubborn to admit he’s soft.

“Godfathers, then. Do you hear that, Calypso? James promises before God that we’ll take care of your kittens should something happen. That’s a commitment one cannot enter into lightly.” Thomas scratches too close to Calypso’s neck and gets another bite.

“I hate both of you,” James says without any real emotion behind it.

______

Silver is right, of course, and it’s on a night not even a week later that Calypso gives birth. Silver had told them that she would want to do it somewhere safe, warm, and hidden, so they had set up a basket padded with blankets, and put it under a bench near the fireplace in the corner of the living room. They could see her, and she could see them, but it was a relatively private spot.

She lets Silver stay with her through the whole birth, but hisses whenever she sees Thomas or James, even when they just try to sneak into the kitchen for a snack. When it’s over, Silver comes into the bedroom where James and Thomas had been forced to wait. Wiping his hands on a rag (for reasons which James does not ask about), Silver announces with all the pride of a first-time father, “There’s four. Two are black, one is orange,” (Thomas lets out a whoop) “and one is white. Not sure where that one came from, but she’s here nonetheless. Come, she might let you see her now.”

They follow Silver into the living room. Calypso looks up skeptically at them, but is too tired to protest their presence. She is purring louder than James has ever heard her purr before. The kittens—all four of them, god, there really are four of them—are nursing. They squirm and writhe in the candlelight like a single entity, rising and falling with Calypso’s breathing. They’re so small, so fragile-looking, that James feels a surge of protectiveness engulf his heart. Maybe they are fathers after all.

“Can I…” James starts, reaching a hand out.

Silver catches his hand. “No, not yet. Give them a few days. And anyway, they probably still have some juices from the womb on them. Calypso licked them thoroughly, but she also ate the placenta, so I don’t trust her mouth to be particularly clean right now.”

Right. James may never touch them now. By the look on Thomas’ face, he may never either.

Silver rolls his eyes at them both. “It’s perfectly natural. All cats do it.”

James doesn’t find that reassuring. God, when did he get so squeamish?

Thomas has reverence in his eyes when he speaks. “I never had children of my own. Miranda and I, we couldn’t… it didn’t…” He trails off, and James puts a hand on his shoulder and rubs. Thomas may have a robust sexual appetite, but James knew that it did not extend to women as James’ and Silver’s did. Thomas doesn’t take his eyes off of the kittens, but he gives a sad smile and covers James’ hand with his own. “I always wanted children though. To raise them from birth, to see them grow and learn.”

“You have that opportunity now,” James assures him. If this is what Thomas needs, it’s what he will give him. Dignity be damned.

Thomas finally turns away from the kittens to look at James, thanks shining in his eyes. James offers him a soft smile and leans their foreheads together.

Silver clears his throat. “Yes, they are here, but she’ll move them if she believes that they’re unsafe where they are. I think our presence is setting her on edge, and it’s getting late anyway. Let’s go to bed.”

James and Thomas separate and look down at Calypso, who is staring right back with wide yellow eyes. Her paws knead the blanket as her kittens nurse, and it shouldn’t look threatening but it certainly does. Every line of her body reads agitated.

So they snuff out the candles and retire to the bedroom.

In the morning, James is not surprised to wake up alone. He pads out of the bedroom to find Silver and Thomas sitting in front of the kitten basket like children sitting in front of a Christmas tree surrounded by presents on Christmas morning. Thomas’ eyes are wide as Silver holds the white kitten in his hands and brings her close to Thomas. Calypso watches it carefully but allows it. Thomas pets her head heart-wrenchingly softly with one finger, clearly terrified of hurting her.

James closes the distance and sits on the other side of Thomas. He looks at Silver and says, “I thought you said we had to wait a few days to hold them.”

“I said _you_ had to, yes. She likes me,” Silver replies smugly.

But there’s something else in his voice too, and Flint hears it. It’s the sound of Silver lying. Flint follows Silver’s eyes to Thomas, who strokes the white kitten like he’s never touched something so precious in his life. Silver’s eyes are soft as he watches Thomas, and James understands. He can’t refuse Thomas anything either. More likely than not, Silver emerged from the bedroom this morning to find Thomas sitting here, staring at the kittens, looking and not touching but so obviously desperate to. So Silver carefully scooped up one of the kittens and told Thomas it was okay to touch now.

James reaches out to stroke a finger along the kitten’s back. She is soft, even softer than any of her parents. He knows he has a dumb, loving look on his face, but he can’t make himself change it. He can feel Silver’s eyes on him now, making the same tender eyes at James as he was at Thomas. James can’t help cupping Silver’s cheek with his free hand and leaning forward to kiss him soundly.

________

Pyrrhus brings Calypso mice and birds and anything else he can catch. James would think this was sweet if he killed the food before bringing it to her, but he doesn’t. Sometimes he injures it, but usually he just brings it inside alive and terrified. If the kittens are happy and she’s in the mood, Calypso will jump up to chase the thing and kill it herself before eating it. James is fine with that, even. But—and this is where James has a problem—if she’s not in the mood, there will just be a loose chipmunk or vole or bird causing a ruckus in the house and shitting on everything in fear. It’s not like the cats never brought in half-dead things before, but it was rare enough for James to block it out in between instances.

Now, though, it’s happening so frequently that James is inclined to keep all of the windows firmly shut even as the days grow hotter, just to keep Pyrrhus and his procession of small animals outside where they belong.

Thomas would never allow it, though, and Silver points out that Calypso needs to go outside herself, unless James wants her to shit in the house too. (He doesn’t, he really doesn’t, so he stops suggesting they shut the windows.)

Odysseus never brings Calypso anything to eat, but he does bring her company. James has seen (and Thomas has sketched) Odysseus grooming Calypso while she grooms the kittens.

“It’s rather unusual,” Silver says as he watches the grooming. He’s lying on the couch with his head in James’ lap and his leg in Thomas’. “Male cats will often try to kill kittens if they think the kittens aren’t theirs. None of them are grey, though I suppose he could be the father of the white one or the black ones. Even so, it’s rare for the father to be this attentive.”

James runs his fingers along the lines of Silver’s face, tracing the delicate bones under his skin and tickling his mustache. He looks at Thomas, who is intently focused on capturing the scrape of Odysseus’ tongue through the fur on Calypso’s back.

James smiles. “Everything in this house is rare.”

_________

The kittens open their eyes after a week. They all have deep blue eyes which Silver says will change soon enough.

After a week of proving themselves to be competent co-parents, Calypso has begun allowing Thomas and James to pick up the kittens themselves, as long as they stay near her.

James is usually the first one to come home from work. Silver had long since switched to working for the print shop where Thomas works. He stands outside the shop and sells the papers Thomas prints, finally putting his powers of persuasion to good use. The print shop gets out later than the lunch rush at the inn, so James will often find himself home alone with the kittens.

If the pirates in Nassau could see the dread Captain Flint now, his greying hair long and his fearsome beard shaven, alone, sitting on the floor of his cozy living room in socked feet and fawning over a kitten that can’t even really crawl yet, well… it’s not something he can think about. (Sometimes Silver will come home to this scene and the smirk on his face tells James that he is thinking the same thing.)

Of the two black kittens, one is considerably smaller. The runt of the litter. She’s going to be strong, James can already tell. She looks at him with her tiny eyes and she is not afraid of what she sees. It makes James’ heart swell with affection.

Her brother, though. He’s going to be a real bastard. He can’t crawl yet, none of them can, but he can wiggle. He stares at James and vibrates with the desire to pounce at his face, James is sure. He wouldn’t have survived this long if he couldn’t tell when someone wanted to fight him.

The orange kitten is shy, nervous. No sooner will James get him in hand and lift him out of the basket than he will start mewling at the top of his lungs. Calypso will _mrow_ in response and get up. James is sure she would take the kitten back by force if he let it get that far but he has no interest in that, so he gently puts him back in the basket. The orange kitten will immediately join his siblings in their snuggle pile, and Calypso will lick him as if to get the scent of James’ hand off. James can’t help feeling rejected every time this happens, but he consoles himself with the fact that the kitten does it to Thomas and even Silver too.

The white kitten is independent but sweet. She will not be held if she doesn’t want to be, but snuggles close if she does. James’ heart aches with love for her.

________

By two weeks, the kittens are walking.

By three weeks, they are walking well enough to give James trouble.

He gets up early one Saturday morning to start breakfast. Silver and Thomas had both fucked him so thoroughly the night before that he felt like it was the least he could do. He’s only cracked three eggs before he feels little needles digging into the skin of his bare leg.

“Fuck!” He whisper-yells, both in response to the pain and the fact that when he instinctively kicks his leg out he sees a ball of black fur go flying across the kitchen.

He was right, this one is a bastard. But he’s unharmed, thankfully, and immediately starts walking back towards James. James picks him up and puts him on the counter before the little bastard can hurt him further. (Later, James will remember this moment as one of the worst decisions of his life. The cat develops such a penchant for climbing things he shouldn’t that James thinks it _must_ be someone’s fault. No creature is born that frustrating.)

“Do you want to help me make breakfast for your fathers, you little shit? Or do you just want to cause trouble?” The cat mewls loudly and starts stumbling towards the bowl where James had been cracking eggs, and that’s enough of an answer, really.

“Alright, if that’s how it’s going to be.” Flint picks the kitten up by the scruff on the back of his neck and puts him into a large empty pot that is sitting on the counter. The kitten’s mewls reverberate off the sides of the iron pot, and Flint watches as he tries to climb up the sides, to no avail. Flint smiles and goes back to cooking.

He has almost finished making breakfast when Silver and Thomas walk sleepily into the kitchen. Both stop short and look around comically when they hear mewling but cannot locate a kitten. Thomas crouches to look under the table while Silver studies Flint, who refuses to meet his eyes but can’t help the small self-satisfied smirk that pulls at the edges of his lips.

Silver looks around the counter and zeroes in on the pot. He sighs as he lifts the kitten out. “Really, Captain, I haven’t seen this kind of behavior from you in quite some time. Imprisoning a defenseless child? On what charges?”

“He scratched my leg and tried to ruin your breakfast.”

“Did he draw blood?” Silver is stroking the kitten and has already gotten him to quiet down.

James looks down at his leg. “It would appear not.” It sounds a bit like an overreaction, now.

Silver scoffs. “Really, I’ve seen you get shot and react less severely towards the offender.”

Flint looks at him playfully. “That’s only because I knew you’d stomp him to death with an iron leg a year later.”

Silver huffs out a laugh.

Thomas, now standing, looks between them with the expression that he always wears when they joke so easily about their past violence: somewhere between disturbed and aroused.

They don’t eat breakfast until much later.

________

When the kittens are a month old, they are sturdy on their feet and run around the house at will. They jump on each other and on the adult cats, and their personalities have matured exactly as James expected they would.

James now thinks that the white kitten’s father is Long. She is so skilled at begging for food and curling up sweetly in a lap that James thinks there is no other possibility. She doesn’t remind James of Silver, though, but of someone else.

“I think we should call her Miranda,” James says one night, as the kitten in question eats little scraps of ham from Thomas’ hand.

Thomas looks up at him, surprised, but when he looks back down at the kitten a slow smile spreads across his face. “Yes, I think that suits her.”

________

Thomas and Silver come home from work one day to a peculiar scene.

The house has a window on either side of the fireplace in the living room. They look out into the backyard, and they are fairly large; irresponsibly large, really, because they’re quite drafty in the winter. James had built small bookshelves to go beneath both, partially because they had run out of room on the main bookshelf and partially because it allowed the cats to more easily jump in and out of the windows.

Currently, all four of the adult cats sit on the shelves. Odysseus and Pyrrhus on the left, and Long and Calypso on the right. They all stare out the windows with rapt attention.

So, too, does James. He stands in comfortable contrapposto as his hand passes over his chin as if stroking a beard that is no longer there. Silver recognizes it as the pose his captain adopted when he was in deep concentration. Thomas recognizes it as a good painting.

James turns as he hears them enter. He motions for them to be quiet but to come over to him. They do, and what they see is not what they expected.

In the backyard is a flock of turkeys. Truly, it is more birds in one place than any of them can ever recall seeing up close. Three females and one male peck their way through the yard surrounded by about thirty babies.

Without a doubt, the babies are small enough that the cats would have been outside attacking if the parents had not been there. As it is, they twitch their tails and reposition themselves on the bookshelves, filled to the brim with energy they can’t release in the way that they want to.

They all watch for about an hour. When the turkeys have finally all left the yard, they leave the windows.

Thomas smiles widely. “I’ve never seen anything quite like that. The New World is still packed with such possibility, is it not? So many new experiences.”

James and Silver both smile back. James finds he can do little else these days.

______

Silver is taunting the kittens with a feather on a string on a warm evening. Just as they get the feather within their reach, he yanks it away. They are confused when they find that they have pounced onto nothing, but they get back up and try again. Calypso watches from the armchair. Pyrrhus watches her from a window bookshelf.

James and Thomas are reading on the sofa, their sides pressed together. Long has contorted himself into a strange position on James’ lap, all four feet in air and his head hanging off James’ leg into the valley between his and Thomas’ legs. James can’t imagine the position is comfortable. Long looks like a dead insect, and if he wasn’t twitching violently in his sleep and lightly snoring James might be concerned.

James has, after all these months, come to know something about himself. As much as the cats annoy him, disgust him, invade his privacy… there is something to be said for having a warm cat in his lap as he reads. Even if the cat is curled into a strange position. There is a comfort there, a show of deep trust. This cat trusts James enough to lower his defenses so entirely in his presence, and, more than that, he _wants_ to. There are few creatures—human or otherwise—who have truly _wanted_ to spend time in James’ company. He treasures this moment of tranquility.

Which means, of course, that it is soon ruined. By another cat, no less.

James hears Odysseus meowing outside near the front door. Why, James couldn’t say. The back windows were open. Had been all night. Hell, the kitchen window was open, too. Why Odysseus felt the need to be let in the front door _right now_ was beyond James.

(And yes, James could tell the cats apart by their meows. He was _observant_. It was a _skill_.)

James sighs and closes his book. He carefully transfers Long onto Thomas’ lap, who hums and moves a hand onto Long’s exposed stomach. James walks to the front door.

“Christ, just come in through the window, you-”

Odysseus comes running into the house as James opens the door, but he was not the only one on the porch. Like something out of a dream, Madi stands there wringing her hands with a bag next to her. James is speechless. He’s not even wearing a shirt, and here stands a princess (queen now? James isn’t sure) looking as impeccable as she ever did. James’ only consolation is that she seems as surprised as he does. It seems like she had been standing there for a while, trying to decide whether or not to knock.

They stare at each other, wide-eyed and silent, for too long. Thomas calls from the living room, “James, my love, what on earth is keeping you? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

James doesn’t take his eyes off of Madi. “I think I have,” he says. He inclines his head towards the house, asking her to come inside.

Madi’s eyes go wider for a moment before they harden over with determination. She picks up her bag and crosses the threshold. James closes the door behind her.

Thomas looks between Silver, Madi, and James with both questions and answers on tongue. Silver is too preoccupied with the kittens to notice that Madi has entered. He sits on the floor with a delighted smile on his face as he pulls the feather away once again, and the kittens scramble to catch it where he puts it down next.

Madi’s eyes go wide for a different reason than before as she takes in the scene before her. To no one in particular, she asks, “Why do you have so many cats?”

Silver goes still. He drops the feather and the kittens pounce, finally getting their prize. Even from across the room, James can see that Silver is shaking. When Silver finally looks up, his breathing is rough and he has the beginnings of tears in his eyes. “That’s what I said, too.”

They stare at each other, breathing hard. The tension in the room is horrendous.

Thomas decides to break it. “We only had four when he arrived, but John here has managed to give us four more. He’s given us quite a lot.” James knows that Thomas put the emphasis there intentionally, and he knows that Madi will hear it.

She shifts her eyes to Thomas, as if noticing him for the first time. She blinks in disbelief. “Thomas Hamilton, I presume.”

Thomas smiles. He puts his book down and moves Long so that he can cross the room. “Barlow now. Both of us are. We’re cousins here, officially.” He winks at Madi, finally reaching her. “But I’ve forgotten my manners. It’s been some time since I’ve been in the company of royalty, I do apologize.” He kisses her hand, and from anyone else it would feel mocking, but Thomas means it.

Madi still hasn’t processed everything, but suddenly she looks down. James and Thomas do too, and see all four kittens trying to climb her skirts. They seem to have lost interest in the feather after having attained it, and went searching for a new source of entertainment.

Thomas tuts at the same time James mutters, “These damn cats,” and both reach down to grab them before they snag a thread. Then they stand there, both holding a squirming kitten in each hand, James still shirtless, and no one knowing what to say.

Silver is still on the floor, and he looks too shocked to be likely to stand up any time soon. Part of James thinks he and Thomas should leave, but the bigger part of him thinks Silver needs them right now.

So James swallows, then gestures to the couch with the kitten in his right hand and says, “Please, have a seat. I’ll take your bag to the guest room. Thomas, will you put the kettle on? Or whiskey? We don’t have rum.” He’s rambling now. He can’t remember if he’d ever seen Madi drink anything.

James hands both of the kittens to Thomas, who shoots him a panicked look as he tries to hold four wiggling kittens at once. Thomas manages, and walks towards the kitchen. They keep a crate in there, lined with blankets and with sides high enough that the kittens can’t jump out, but Calypso can come and go.

Madi hands James her bag once his hands are free. “Whiskey will be fine, Captain.” She makes her way to the couch, pointedly avoiding where Silver is sitting on the floor and blocking the most direct route, instead walking around the other side of the armchair. She sits as far away from Silver on the floor as she can, though she turns her body towards him.

James nods. “You can call me James, if you want.”

Madi looks him up and down. “That is probably best.”

James feels self-conscious under her gaze. He nods again and leaves the room to put her bag away and to put a shirt on.

When James comes back a minute later, Silver is still sitting on the floor. He gazes up at Madi like she is something holy, but Madi can only look at the drink in her hand. Or maybe she’s looking at Long, who has woken up long enough to settle in her lap. Thomas sits in the armchair, ignoring the awkwardness in the air as only someone well versed in it can.

“How was your voyage?” He asks warmly, as if Madi was an old friend of his and not someone who his lovers once fought a war with.

Madi looks up at him. “It was uneventful.”

“Ah, I’m sorry to hear that. It really is terrible to be on a ship with nothing to distract you from the fact that you’re on a ship.”

James smiles, despite everything. He sits on the couch next to Madi, placing himself between her and Silver on the floor. “Thomas never was one for ships. When I was in the Navy, I took him aboard my ship once. Even in the harbor in London, he got seasick.”

Thomas crinkles his nose at the memory. “That ship rocked back and forth so violently I thought we must surely have been in the midst of a hurricane! It was dreadful.” He takes a sip of his whiskey.

James snorts. “I’ve been on a ship in a hurricane. Hell, I’ve steered a ship _into_ a hurricane. Believe me, it was nothing like-”

“Why are you here?” Silver asks abruptly.

Madi starts. She takes another sip of her whiskey. “Do you remember when your Mr. Dobbs attacked my man aboard the Walrus in retaliation for questioning and killing some of your crew?”

Silver frowns. “Of course I do. That was so early in our alliance, I thought for sure it would cause it to crumble.”

“It very well could have, if I had allowed it to. But I did not. I took that knife and cut him free. I told him never to speak of it. I did this because if I had not, I would have cursed both of our men to cycles of violence that would not have ceased. I would not only have caused the deaths of your men, but the deaths of mine. I could not abide that, even though to let my man kill yours would have been fair. It would have been just. But it would not have been an isolated action. I was so sure of myself in those days. And looking back, I was right to do what I did.” Madi looks right at Silver. “I have spent a lot of time thinking about that day in relation to the day you betrayed me.” Silver flinches, but Madi continues. “I think that we acted for the same reasons. We saw that the suffering caused by our actions, though these actions would provide justice, would ultimately be unproductive. The violence that we would have done would have been deserved, but it would only create more violence. I have not forgiven you yet, and I cannot promise that I ever will. You saved many lives, mine included, but you also condemned so many others to premature deaths and the agony of lifelong torture. That is no small thing. I am still angry with you. Furious. You made a decision about the future of my people— _my_ future—without me. You planned to, for months.” Madi pauses, nearly shaking with the force of her anger. Then, she stills. “But I realized, too, that I love you anyway. And that I have lost enough. It is time I gained something again, if you will allow it.”

Silver raises his eyebrows. “ _Allow_ it? I- of course I’ll- if anything, I should be the one…” He’s almost climbed into James’ lap at this point, trying to get closer to Madi.

“Yes, perhaps you should.” She smiles, and it’s almost playful.

They meet halfway. Silver has his left leg up on the couch, his right angled awkwardly and shaking as he reaches for Madi. Madi leans down a bit, and their lips meet. James is very close to this, half under Silver as he is, and as happy as he is for both of them, he feels like his presence is no longer required.

After what is really too long a moment for a man only romantically involved with one of the people kissing over his lap, Silver and Madi pull away from each other. They still hold each other’s faces in their hands, overjoyed to be reunited and to be _allowed_ to have this.

Thomas clears his throat. “Shall James and I make up the second bed?”

Silver looks at Thomas as if he just remembered he was there. “Please.”

And so Thomas and James spend the rest of the evening on the sofa, trying to politely ignore any and all noises coming from the second bedroom.

It continues like this for several days.

_______

When Silver first joined the Walrus crew, he hadn’t expected to find any sort of lasting companionship. He joined only to save his own life, and stayed only to save his own life. (And if he made an exorbitant amount of money along the way, well, he wasn’t going to argue with that.)

Silver knew how he looked. He knew he was attractive. He had used it to get what he wanted more often than he could remember, charming both men and women into bed and out of money. Silver saw the way Flint looked at him back then, even in the early days. Silver wouldn’t have survived as long as he had if he hadn’t learned how to spot attraction in a dangerous man a mile away.

But Silver also knew that Flint wouldn’t act on it, that he was the type of man to see his attraction to other men as something to be sublimated, so Silver decided that he could have some fun with it. He would wear shirts with a deep V that showed too much of his neck and chest and he would let his blue eyes go wide and make his lips quirk up in a teasing smirk just to see the lust flare underneath the restrained frustration on Flint’s face. He would let his hair fall into his face and push his fingers behind his belt to draw attention to his groin and just watch as Flint scowled but couldn’t look directly at him.

He was playing. It wasn’t supposed to mean anything.

But then he lost his leg and slept in the captain’s cabin of the fucking warship, and when he woke up Flint was there, and Flint’s eyes were soft when Silver unthinkingly let his hand slide over Flint’s as Flint handed him a cup of water and Silver thought _oh no_ as he realized it had gone too far. Flint actually had feelings for him.

So he opened his mouth and broke Flint’s heart. He told him that the gold was gone and that Spain wasn’t the culprit. He watched Flint’s face fall and thought _good_. He hoped it would work on himself too.

But, of course, matters of the heart are rarely that simple. When Flint proposed suicide in the cage on the Maroon island, Silver felt his stomach drop inexplicably. He tried to ignore it, tried to go along with Billy and what was more likely to be best for the crew, but he just couldn’t do it.

He slid up to Flint in the cage and whispered flattery. He told him that he didn’t want him to die, and that he believed in him. It was more of a confession than Silver truly felt comfortable making.

It worked.

Slowly but surely, Silver’s feelings for Flint grew in depth and intensity. Even when he truly thought he hated Flint, he still found himself in a state of awe and admiration of Flint’s ability to manipulate the world around him to fit his vision of how it should look. And it terrified him.

He didn’t fully understand Flint, but he came to understand the ways in which he did not understand him. He could not peak into the dark corners of Flint’s past but he could see where the shadows were cast. These shadows haunted Silver. He turned them over and over in his mind, tried to approach them with torches and lanterns from every angle he knew and still nothing solid came of it.

When Silver found himself alone in a dark forest with Flint, he hoped that Flint would allow the fire between them to finally cast light on these shadows. And he did. Silver couldn’t say he was surprised at what he found there, once the darkness had been illuminated, but knowing the specifics was like scratching an itch he’d been unable to reach by himself. It was _satisfying_ in a way Silver hadn’t expected. It terrified him. Instinctively, he deflected. He told Flint that he would be his end, even as he felt his conviction in that fact shaking.

Flint just laughed at him.

As with Flint, Silver’s first interactions with Madi had been with a view towards saving his own life. He was trapped, she had all the power, and he had to convince her that he was worthy of keeping alive. Somehow, he managed this. Somehow, they fell in love.

If Silver’s feelings for Flint terrified him, he had no words to describe his feelings for Madi. He had never felt so overwhelmed by someone’s mere presence, so desperately terrified of losing something so soft and precious as the tenderness that existed between them. His love for Madi made his heart ache and overflow with joy at the same time.

When he thought he had lost her, everything ended. The very color and texture of the world had been blurred to indistinction by the smoke of a house set ablaze by a war they had no business starting. And then she was alive, alive, blessedly alive, and Silver decided firmly that he would never go through that again.

So, as had been increasingly happening, Silver found himself acting not to save his own life but to save the lives of the ones he cared about. It was still a selfish move, taking away their war, but it was the most selfless selfish act he’d ever committed.

Looking at Madi now, asleep in his arms in the house he shares with James and Thomas, Silver buzzes with the fulfillment of knowing he had made the right choice. James has Thomas back, his lost love returned from the dead, and now, finally, Silver has Madi back. He knows that she hasn’t fully forgiven him yet, and perhaps never will. He can live with that. She is alive and breathing in his arms, and that’s all he needs.

________

It’s good having Madi live with them, but it’s also strange. James never imagined he’d see her half-awake in the morning, tripping over cats as she makes her way to the kitchen for breakfast. When fully awake, the lines of her body still read _regal_. Newly awoken, however, she simply reads as _tired_.

Thomas is immediately taken with her, of course. They debate philosophy and literature with a passion that James always worries will spill over into true arguments, given how differently the two grew up, but the discussions are always respectful.

Madi is wary of the cats at first, but she is quickly won over by them. (Really, James suspects, she is won over by seeing how much Silver has taken to them, and they to him.) The white kitten, Miranda, becomes Madi’s favorite because she is the only one who doesn’t try to climb her skirts. Instead, she curls up in Madi’s lap while Madi sits in the living room. Madi pets her softly and the kitten sighs contentedly.

James wonders how Madi would have liked the kitten’s namesake, and has to leave the room abruptly at the emotions that crash over him. They would have liked each other, he thinks.

________

It’s an unspoken thing, but they all know that Madi won’t stay. She may not be fighting a war anymore, but she is still inspiring slave revolts across the colonies and helping the survivors escape to safety. It’s not nearly as much as she wants to do, but it’s better than nothing.

She will stay for a few months, or perhaps a year, but she will not stay forever. Silver knows that he will let her go without fuss when the time comes, and that she will do her best to come back to him, but it terrifies him anyway.

________

Silver shaves his beard. He doesn’t make a big deal out of it, just does it one morning, natural as anything, as if it was part of his daily routine.

Madi and Thomas stare at him as he sits down at the kitchen table for breakfast. It is as if they are seeing a new man; as if they are meeting John for the first time. They like what they see.

James is the only one of the three who had seen him without a beard before. He looks ten years younger, easily. This is the man who Flint pressed against the rocks down at the wrecks, the playful rogue who quipped about becoming friends with a notorious pirate captain before he could kill him. It is who John was before he was forced into the shape of Long John Silver.

He looks good.

Thomas huffs, half in amusement and half in annoyance. “I suppose I’ll have to start shaving now, too.”

________

James has taken up crafting a ship-in-bottle. It’s good for him to focus on something meticulous. John teases him that it helps keep James’ brain sharp in his old age. Truly his mind has not dulled but rather relaxed, though he takes Silver’s point. It’s not why he does it, though.

He’s very secretive about it. He collects scraps of wood, always looking for some specific color or shape but unwilling to tell the others what, exactly, he’s looking for. James feels like he needs to find it on his own.

He won’t let anyone look at his ship.

One dreary Wednesday night, John sneaks up behind James and catches him whittling the smallest mermaid figurehead he’s ever seen. “Do ships this small usually have figureheads?” He asks James, head cocked to the side.

James startles, and covers the mermaid with his hands as if to preserve her modesty. “I don’t care.”

A week and a half later, John is reading Don Quixote out loud to Madi and Thomas when they hear the sound of small wood clamoring to the floor, small paws scurrying, and a big yell of “FUCK!” coming from Thomas and James’ bedroom. When they go to investigate, they see the male black kitten scrambling out the door, James’ model ship in pieces on the floor, and James’ face somewhere between livid and sorrowful.

Even in ruin, or perhaps especially, John recognizes the ship.

“I thought… I thought if I could put her in glass I could protect her.” Flint’s eyes are full of tears. He looks at Silver desperately.

Silver rushes to his side and Flint collapses into his arms, head tucked into the crook of his neck.

“It all turned out the same. I can’t save her, I-“ Flint cuts himself off as a sob wreaks through his body.

Thomas and Madi look on startled: Thomas, because while he was told many stories in which _The Walrus_ played the part of the setting, he never knew her to be a main character and did not feel keenly enough that she was Flint’s home for ten years, and Madi because she has never seen the captain break down, and has a hard time reconciling the image in front of her, even knowing his story as she does.

Thomas approaches, wanting to comfort his husband, but Silver makes eye contact and shakes his head. Soon, Flint will become James again, and James will need Thomas. Soon, but not right now. Right now, Flint needs Silver.

Silver holds him as he lets his emotions out. Then, when the sobs stop and his grip loosens, John says, “That cat is a ship killer. We should call him Hurricane.”

A laugh surprises its way out of James, and it is decided.

________

Bathing is difficult. Four bodies mean four baths, ideally, but as they only have one tub and the well in the backyard runs salty if they pull too much water from it too quickly, they generally make do with one tub full. Two, if they’re particularly dirty.

Thomas often laments the loss of Roman indoor plumbing as if he had been around to experience it. “Truly, we have gone backwards as a society. If they had it, why shouldn’t we?” He grumbles as he pours the last bucket of warmed water into the tub where John is reclining.

John looks up at him from the soapy water. “You’re just upset because you’re going last this week.”

Thomas scowls with all the passion and skill of a currently unpampered lord. “No, I love accumulating the dirt of others as I attempt to rid myself of my own. It’s why I left my comfortable house in England. It was just too clean!” He avoids eye contact with John.

John catches Thomas’ hand and pulls him down softly until they are eye-level. He kisses Thomas gently, slowly gliding his tongue around Thomas’ mouth in the way that he knows Thomas loves.

Thomas’ breath quickens. After a minute or so, he pulls away before they can get any more involved. “Mmm. You’re right. _That’s_ why I left my comfortable house.” He gives John one last smack of a kiss before standing again. “Hurry up, I’d like the water to be at least somewhat warm when I’m finally allowed to use it.”

________

Things are good with Madi in the house. Really, they are. John is beside himself with joy, James not far behind him, and Thomas enjoys conversing with someone new.

The problem is that James and Thomas had gotten quite used to having John in their bed. It’s enough to see him in the house, to cook with him and read with him and to each steal off with him individually in the shed or the other room or once, when no one else was home, across the kitchen table. But it all feels furtive in a way that it shouldn’t have to. Madi knows, she approves. She wasn’t even surprised when John told her.

And yet it feels disrespectful, somehow, to ask John to sleep with them and leave Madi alone for the night; or, worse, to have him and then send him to sleep with her, drenched in their scents, as if they were marking their territory.

If it were just Madi, John, and James, there would be less of a problem. While James is not particularly attracted to Madi, he is attracted to women on occasion, and, as he is not blind (yet), he can see that Madi is attractive. His feelings for her are strong enough that any sexual encounter between them would be meaningful and pleasant, though they would both focus much more on John than on each other.

Thomas, however. Thomas has no attraction to women. Even Miranda, who was beautiful and who he loved more than anyone else, held no physical attraction for him. They had tried, once, to have James at the same time. It ended in humiliation as Thomas, confused and distressed as he had been on his wedding night by Miranda’s ample bosom and lack of cock, failed to maintain an erection. They had salvaged the night by redressing in their nightclothes and holding James between them as they drifted to sleep, but the experience didn’t bode well for future sexual encounters involving women.

It helps that Madi also has no interest in Thomas; there is no feeling of rejection. She treasures their discussions but physically he is so _English_ , so featureless apart from his eyes, that she feels no loss at their mutual lack of attraction.

She doesn’t want to sleep without John ever again if she can help it (even though the second bed is really too small for two, she’ll have to look into getting a bigger one next time she’s in town), and she knows that John feels the same, but still she understands by his hesitation as he walks past James and Thomas’ room to get to their own when it is time for bed that he misses the nights he spent in their company. She doesn’t want to sleep without him, but she also doesn’t want him to suffer over something as trivial as sleeping arrangements. So she makes a decision.

One night, after watching John share two particularly lingering goodnight kisses with James and Thomas, Madi stops him from getting into bed with her with a hand on his bare chest. He looks at her, hurt and confusion mingling on his face.

“Tonight, you belong with them.” Madi tells him. John tries to speak, but she interrupts him, “I do not mind. You are mine, but you are not mine alone. I know this. I have known this for as long as I have known you.” She puts one hand on his cheek and kisses him soundly, stroking along his cheekbone. “Now go. You are far too warm to sleep with in the summer anyway.”

John smiles and kisses the palm of her hand in thanks before leaving the room.

He enters James and Thomas’ room without knocking, and sees James in the glasses he insists he doesn’t need reading in bed by candlelight (a rather expensive habit of his, but one which no one has the heart to break him of), and Thomas standing by the dresser in just his nightshirt. Both look at him as he enters.

Suddenly nervous, John says, “I’ve been sent here for the night, if you’ll have me.”

Both move towards him quickly, but since Thomas is already standing he gets to him first. He wraps his arms around John, bringing him to nestle his face into Thomas’ neck. James gets there soon after and throws his arms around both of them.

“Of course we’ll have you. We’ll have you anytime. We’re lucky to have you,” James murmurs near John’s ear, kissing the skin just below the lobe between each sentence.

John nearly melts in their arms as the reassurances and affections grow in intensity. They make their way to the bed when it becomes clear that he cannot stand much longer, and continue their ministrations there.

Thomas carefully removes John’s trousers and smallclothes before taking John’s cock into his mouth, moaning at the feeling as if their positions were reversed. James works Thomas’ shirt off, briefly interrupting Thomas’ attentions to get it over his head. John, flat on his back on the bed with his cock down Thomas’ throat, looks James up and down hungrily. James takes the hint and removes his own clothes as well before joining his lovers on the bed. He leans over John’s body to kiss him, deeply but unhurriedly. For the first time in over a month, he has time.

________

The sharing is much easier after that.

Sometimes John will spend the whole night with Madi, sometimes with James and Thomas. Sometimes he will pleasure Madi before joining James and Thomas for the night, James licking the taste out of his mouth and thinking of Miranda. Sometimes he will spend a rapturously pleasurable night with James and Thomas but sleep with Madi because really James and Thomas’ bed isn’t so much bigger than the other one. Sometimes he really does just sleep with one or the others, held tenderly in arms that know his shape.

No matter what he chooses, he knows that his partners are happy to let him make the choice. That’s more than he’s ever had, really.

________

Of all the surprises that come from living with cats for the first time, James finds most interesting the fact that they all have separate, distinct personalities. He’d noticed this in the original four, but finds that it holds true for the kittens as well.

Even just the difference between the two black kittens is astonishing to James. Hurricane, true to his name, climbs and jumps and attacks and just generally acts in ways that James wishes he wouldn’t. Any opportunity to draw blood, Hurricane takes. John insists that he’s just playing, just rough-housing, but James would still prefer not to be covered in small scratches all the time.

The other black kitten is different. She is smaller, though not meek by any stretch of the imagination. She will respond in kind when she is attacked, and generally comes out on top. But she does not provoke, never makes the first move. Instead she watches, just like her mother, and observes. When Hurricane and Miranda climb up the new curtains, only to fall down or be pulled off by one of the humans, she does not attempt to follow in their path. She watches the adults hunt, and learns how to do it successfully before any of the other kittens.

She’s smart, James decides. Maybe the smartest of them all. And not only smart, but strong. The other kittens seem to pick on her more than each other, and yet she continues to bounce back and beat them at everything.

“She reminds me of Max,” Silver muses one night, as they watch her make off with a dead mouse that Pyrrhus had left for Calypso.

James raises his eyebrows. He hadn’t thought about Max in months. It fit, though. She had been the brains behind the scenes for much longer than James had known. Even now, James saw her role in the death of Flint as bafflingly large. He’d underestimated her, as most people had. That was to her advantage. In many ways, James admires her.

James is loath to admit that, though. He hums. “It fits.”

________

Though John has been clean-shaven for weeks now, and likes it better than the scraggly beard he’s just able to grow, he hates every moment he has to spend shaving himself. The mirror in Thomas and James’ bedroom is no better (and not much bigger) than the one he had at sea when he was young, the thing so old and poorly crafted that it is made more of dark blotches than reflective glass at this point. The blade is constantly dulling from its thrice daily use removing large amounts of coarse hair, and so it must be constantly sharpened. The shaving soap they use is shit, but it’s all they can afford.

And, really, John might be as nimble on his crutch as he was on his own two feet, as the stories whisper, but it’s still difficult to lean against a crutch on an uneven floor while holding a blurry mirror half the size of his head in one hand and scraping a sharp blade over his face with the other at precisely the right angle to remove the hair but not the skin from his face.

One morning, James watches from bed as John balances skillfully while getting ready to shave. James is preparing to be impressed, as he always is when John does anything. James could watch him for hours, doing anything and nothing. Has, actually. John seems to never tire of playing with the cats, and James never tires of watching him.

It’s why James knows that John has been tired recently. He hasn’t been sleeping well, though he won’t admit it, and James thinks that it’s because his leg is bothering him, though he won’t admit that either.

John accidentally drops the razor, swearing as it clatters noisily to the floor by his foot. James jumps up to get it for him.

Instead of handing the razor back to John, James says, “Why don’t I do it?”

John gives him a look that says ‘I don’t need anyone’s help’ loudly and clearly. “I’m fine, James. I can do it myself.”

“I know you can. I want to do it.” James leans in close. “I want to do it for you. Please let me.” James presses soft kisses to John’s temple, cheek, lips. There is an intimacy inherent to shaving another person, and James is perfectly willing to play it up if it is what will convince John to let James help him for a moment. James will pretend it’s about himself.

John sighs. “Fine. Just this once.”

James smiles and kisses him reverently. They break apart and move to the kitchen table. Why John doesn’t shave sitting down James will never understand, but he knows it’s not his place to question it.

John turns one of the chairs out and sits in it. James does the same, facing John and scooting as close as he can until they are practically on top of each other, legs intertwined. He mixes the lather, sharpens the blade, and smooths the lather onto John’s face. He does it slowly, softly, so that John feels as though he is lovingly touching his face more than he is preparing him to shave. John’s eyes drift shut and he makes contented little _mmm_ noises as James strokes his face.

When the lather has been applied and John is sufficiently relaxed, James picks up the razor. He starts on John’s left cheek, languidly moving the blade across his face. James uses a finger under John’s chin to angle his face where he needs it, and John moves fluidly under his touch.

John does not open his eyes until both cheeks are done, and he is turned to face James directly. John watches James’ eyes—soft, loving, liquid green—as he carefully contours the razor to the grooves of John’s upper lip and chin. There is so much love in James’ face, so much dedication and joyful concentration, that John has to close his eyes again. He is still not used to being looked at like that.

When James is finished, he runs the backs of his fingers along the sensitive and newly smooth parts of John’s face. He takes both of John’s cheeks in his hands and kisses him. John kisses back, heart aching with love for this man in front of him. He thinks maybe shaving doesn’t have to be such a chore.

________

There is only one kitten left to name. It takes almost two months.

Nothing sticks. James thinks about continuing to name the kittens after powerful women from their past, but while the orange fur of this kitten does remind him of Anne Bonny, the personality is all wrong. This kitten is fearful, nervous, and terrible in a fight. To name the cat Bonny would be to do the real one a disservice.

The kitten mews loudly when he is afraid, which is often. It is so pathetically cute that they must keep trying to find a name. ‘The orange kitten’ doesn’t convey the fondness they feel when they see him trotting across the living room on shaky legs, screaming for his mother.

Thomas is still convinced that Pyrrhus is the kitten’s father, and he is probably right. He uses this to argue that the kitten should have a classical name, ideally Greek but he’ll take Roman if he has to. The problem with this is that most Greek figures are heroes, known not for their cowardice but for their bravery.

They don’t come up with a solution until Madi rereads the part of the Iliad where Ares, god of war, instructs his sons Deimos and Phobos to harness his horses. These names had caught her eye earlier in the epic, when they were inscribed upon Agamemnon’s shield. Seeing them again feels like a sign. She brings them to Thomas.

“Terror and fear, eh? I like the idea.” Thomas rubs his chin. “My only problem is that these gods were not terrified and fearful, respectively, rather they inspired these feelings in humans. It’s about war, and the terror and fear that come with it. They’re metaphors more than gods.”

Madi holds his eye. “How do you explain lightning? There is a powerful man with a beard who throws it when he feels like it. How do you explain fear? A god creates in within you. All of the Greek gods were metaphors, these are no different for having fewer stories told about them.”

Thomas raises his eyebrows in capitulation. “True. I’ll give you that.”

Madi continues, “As for your first point, that the gods were not fearful but instead inspired it in others, perhaps our kitten can take the name as aspirational.”

Thomas smiles. “I like that. Phobos it is, then!”

The kitten runs into the room, chased by Hurricane, as if he was called.

________

Epilogue

Silver is on the floor of the living room with Calypso, the two curled towards each other like parentheses. He grimaces as he feels her belly.

“Oh, God,” James says, feeling dread wash over him.

Silver meets his eye briefly, but quickly looks away. He gently coaxes Calypso onto her back and continues to feel around.

“Christ, Silver, don’t tell me.”

Silver’s face is pinched up as he looks up at James. “I’m afraid so, Captain. She’s pregnant again.”

James sighs heavily and rubs his forehead with both hands. He gets up and leaves the room. With every second that he’s gone, Silver starts to panic a little bit more.

When James finally gets back, Silver relaxes. James has the basket and blankets that Calypso gave birth in the first time. He puts the basket under the bench where it was last time and arranges the blankets. He then lays on the floor on the other side of Calypso.

Silver looks at him incredulously. “I expected a fight. At least some loud complaining.”

James’ eyes are soft as he looks at the cat between them. “There’s plenty of time for that still.”

Silver smiles. “You truly have mellowed out, haven’t you?”

James raises a conspiratorial eyebrow. “Don’t tell anyone. I have a reputation.” He reaches out to stroke Calypso’s belly.

She bites him.


End file.
